Drowning Without Water
by hadesgirl015
Summary: After a battle gone wrong, Hera doesn't make it out alive. Everyone is effected, but none so more than Kanan. He falls back to the only way he knows how to numb the pain: drowning his sorrows drinking. (TW character death, drinking and some mild cursing)


Drowning without Water

Summary: After a battle gone wrong, Hera doesn't make it out alive. Everyone is effected, but none so more than Kanan. He falls back to the only way he knows how to numb the pain: drowning his sorrows drinking.

Based on this tumblr prompt from otpprompts: Imagine person A of your OTP trying to drink the pain of person B's death away, but all it does is bring up memories of when they were together and happy. A keeps drinking anyway, thinking they deserve the pain and sadness because they couldn't save B.

Kanan sat at the bar of the cantina. All the other customers kept a safe radius from him, knowing by how much he was drinking, nobody wanted to mess with him. He started into the glass of his fifth drink of the night.

It had been two weeks since, since it happened. Every day he stayed in bed till an hour after noon, nursing both his hangover and his heart. Spent the next few hours trying to avoid the empty cockpit at all cost. Until about eight in the evening, when he left for the cantina, where he would stay until closing getting drunk off his ass, stumbling back to the Ghost at an un-forcely hour of the morning. The cycle would repeat day in and day out.

Kanan took a sip of his drink, relishing in the burning feeling down his throat. He just wanted the pain to numb, but all the drinking did, was make it worse. It just reminded him of the times he shared with, with Hera. How she picked him up out of the ditch he dug himself into. How she was always there for him for the past five years.

"Why can't I just forget?" Kanan muttered to himself. "Why can't the pain just stop?"

He downed the rest of the drink, motioning the barkeeper to make him another.

"Maybe I deserve the pain." Kanan mused. "I couldn't save her. Now this is my punishment. It's all my fault she's dead. I should have stopped the Inquisitors, but I couldn't."

The barkeeper set another drink in front of Kanan before attending to another patron.

Kanan was just getting to the point of being too drunk to function when he heard footsteps approaching his stool. Thinking it was just another patron he snapped, "Keep moving buddy."

"Hey, are you even old enough to be in here?" the barkeeper asked.

"I'm picking someone up." the footsteps replied. Kanan let out a sigh, he knew that voice anywhere.

"What are you doing here Ezra?" Kanan asked.

"I could ask you the same thing." Ezra replied.

"You know perfectly well why I am here." Kanan muttered. He had yet to look at his Padawan, instead favoring staring down his drink.

Ezra sat on the stool next to his master.

"Kanan, please." Ezra said. "We're all getting worried."

Kanan chose to respond by taking a drink.

"Kanan, we all miss her." Ezra comforted.

Kanan downed the rest of the drink.

"Kanan please, come home." Ezra begged.

"There is no home for me." Kanan said.

"What are you talking about?" Ezra asked.

"Don't you getting it!" Kanan yelled, finally facing Ezra, his words starting to slur slightly. He slammed his empty glass, causing it to shatter. "Hera was my home!"

"And you're mine!" Ezra returned.

"You don't understand." Kanan argued.

"Don't I?" Ezra marveled. "Kanan out of everyone on the ship I probably know the best!" He took a breath. "My home was taken from me when I was seven. I know what it's like to lose the people you care most about."

Kanan looked at Ezra.

"Kanan please," Ezra had tears in his eyes, "I lost my parents. Now I've lost Hera, I can't, I can't lose you too. I can't be alone again."

"You have Zeb and Sabine." Kanan muttered.

"So do you. You have all of us." Ezra said.

"Ezra, just leave me alone." Kanan muttered, turning back to the bar, motioning for yet another drink.

Ezra grabbed it before Kanan could even touch it, an easy feat considering that Kanan was drunk.

"No I won't leave you alone." Ezra said. "You promised me when we were about to find out what happened to my parents I wouldn't be alone no matter how it turned out. Now I'm promising you that."

"That doesn't change the fact that she's gone." Kanan said. "She's, she's gone." Tears started to come to his eyes. "She's never coming back. I never, I never told he how much I loved her."

"Life doesn't end after death. It turns into the Force." Ezra comforted. "She'll always be with us."

Kanan was silent.

"You told me the exact same thing after I learned my parents died." Ezra explained. "It applies here too."

Kanan remained silent, thinking over his Padawan's words.

"Kanan, if there was one thing I learned ever since I joined you guys, it's that you don't have to go through anything alone." Ezra said. "We're a family. We always will be, even with Hera."

"I feel like I'm drowning." Kanan revealed.

"We all feel that way." Ezra replied. "But Sabine, Zeb and I can deal with it a little better because we talk about it with each other. We're there for each other."

Kanan meet Ezra's eyes again.

"Let us help you Kanan." Ezra said holding out his hand. "Let me help you."

Kanan shakily stood, setting the credits for the drinks on the counter, before grabbing Ezra's hand.

"Let's go home." Kanan said.

Ezra led the very shaking Kanan back to the Ghost.

'Yes, the pain still hurt.' Kanan thought the next day after he sobered up. 'But Ezra was right. Hera was one with the Force now, she'll always be a part of me. And it was easier to grieve with others rather than alcohol. After all alcohol just numbs the pain, and the pain doesn't heal if it's too numb to gauge how it feels. I still thought of Hera every day, and I still missed her, but thanks to the others, thanks to Ezra, I no longer felt like I was drowning without water.'


End file.
